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A review by thebookishlifeofbecks
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
3.0
If I am being completely honest, I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would, yet I didn’t hate it either. On one hand, it was a very realistic and insightful memoir into Dolly’s life, and I think people can learn a lot from somebody else sharing their own experiences and mistakes. However, I have a lot of problems with this book, and I am not sure that I would ever read it again.
While I found some of the book to be very poignant and wise, I feel as though the majority of it did not paint Dolly in a very good light, and by the end of the book, I came to dislike her as a person. I am not saying that I wanted her to be perfect, because of course such perfection does not exist, but I found myself disliking her because she never seemed to learn from her mistakes, and simply kept making them over and over again, which I found to be incredibly frustrating; and documenting them made the book extremely repetitive. Though, it made me want to be her friend, so that I could offer her advice and guidance as it made me angry to see her essentially making some very poor choices.
My main problem with this book is that I found her to be narcissistic and irritating. Not only did she have a self-destructive personality, but she also had an awful attitude towards her friends and family. Her self-destructive behavior, in the form of her dependency on alcohol, her casual drug taking and her endless string of one-night stands, seemed to be a way to fill the void of not having a significant other or any true friends that she can count on, aside from Farly. And, though I understand sometimes being jealous about your friend’s happiness and success, especially if you are at a point in your life where you feel as though you haven’t achieved anything or you are not where you hoped you would be, it seemed as though Dolly wanted and was constantly hoping that things would go wrong for her friends just so she could feel better about herself and her life.
While there were some parts that I enjoyed reading, I did not enjoy this book as much as I would have liked, mainly due to the fact that I couldn’t relate to Dolly’s life at all, due to her downward spiral of poor decision making (as previously mentioned above)… all of the alcohol, drugs, one night stands, wild parties, chaos, and complete lack of control. As a reader, I enjoy books that I can identify with, which present universal experiences, and yet, there was nothing in this book that I could identify with or that felt like a reflection of myself.
However, that’s not to say that the book was awful, because it wasn’t, and there were certainly parts of it that I enjoyed.
I really liked the fact that lists and satirical emails were interspersed throughout, as it broke up the text and felt as though I was reading her diary more so than a book, which made it feel more personal. And, the way in which she tells some stories throughout make them genuinely funny, to the point where I actually found myself laughing out loud.
Furthermore, I liked the fact that there was a contrast between the satirical and humorous moments of the book, and the heartbreaking, as it really showcased the ups and downs that life tends to throw at us as human beings.
Additionally, while I felt as though the majority of the book was unrelatable for me, there were some beautiful analogies throughout; and one quote in particular really did hit home, as I am in my early twenties and still trying to come to terms with the fact that I am ‘grown up’, and that that the future that my childhood self pictured, is not the way I imagined it:
“When you begin to wonder if life is really just waiting for buses… and ordering books you’ll never read off Amazon… You are realizing the mundanity of life. You are finally understanding how little point there is to anything. You are moving out of the realm of fantasy ‘when I grow up’ and adjusting to the reality that you’re there; it’s happening. And it wasn’t what you thought it might be. You are not who you thought you would be.” (Page 167-168)
Overall, this is a book that perhaps not everybody will relate to, but I would recommend reading anyway; even if it is simply to make yourself feel better about things.
While I found some of the book to be very poignant and wise, I feel as though the majority of it did not paint Dolly in a very good light, and by the end of the book, I came to dislike her as a person. I am not saying that I wanted her to be perfect, because of course such perfection does not exist, but I found myself disliking her because she never seemed to learn from her mistakes, and simply kept making them over and over again, which I found to be incredibly frustrating; and documenting them made the book extremely repetitive. Though, it made me want to be her friend, so that I could offer her advice and guidance as it made me angry to see her essentially making some very poor choices.
My main problem with this book is that I found her to be narcissistic and irritating. Not only did she have a self-destructive personality, but she also had an awful attitude towards her friends and family. Her self-destructive behavior, in the form of her dependency on alcohol, her casual drug taking and her endless string of one-night stands, seemed to be a way to fill the void of not having a significant other or any true friends that she can count on, aside from Farly. And, though I understand sometimes being jealous about your friend’s happiness and success, especially if you are at a point in your life where you feel as though you haven’t achieved anything or you are not where you hoped you would be, it seemed as though Dolly wanted and was constantly hoping that things would go wrong for her friends just so she could feel better about herself and her life.
While there were some parts that I enjoyed reading, I did not enjoy this book as much as I would have liked, mainly due to the fact that I couldn’t relate to Dolly’s life at all, due to her downward spiral of poor decision making (as previously mentioned above)… all of the alcohol, drugs, one night stands, wild parties, chaos, and complete lack of control. As a reader, I enjoy books that I can identify with, which present universal experiences, and yet, there was nothing in this book that I could identify with or that felt like a reflection of myself.
However, that’s not to say that the book was awful, because it wasn’t, and there were certainly parts of it that I enjoyed.
I really liked the fact that lists and satirical emails were interspersed throughout, as it broke up the text and felt as though I was reading her diary more so than a book, which made it feel more personal. And, the way in which she tells some stories throughout make them genuinely funny, to the point where I actually found myself laughing out loud.
Furthermore, I liked the fact that there was a contrast between the satirical and humorous moments of the book, and the heartbreaking, as it really showcased the ups and downs that life tends to throw at us as human beings.
Additionally, while I felt as though the majority of the book was unrelatable for me, there were some beautiful analogies throughout; and one quote in particular really did hit home, as I am in my early twenties and still trying to come to terms with the fact that I am ‘grown up’, and that that the future that my childhood self pictured, is not the way I imagined it:
“When you begin to wonder if life is really just waiting for buses… and ordering books you’ll never read off Amazon… You are realizing the mundanity of life. You are finally understanding how little point there is to anything. You are moving out of the realm of fantasy ‘when I grow up’ and adjusting to the reality that you’re there; it’s happening. And it wasn’t what you thought it might be. You are not who you thought you would be.” (Page 167-168)
Overall, this is a book that perhaps not everybody will relate to, but I would recommend reading anyway; even if it is simply to make yourself feel better about things.